“The greater part of our troubles are imaginary, and we suffer more in apprehension than in reality.”

Warning against allowing fear and anticipation to enlarge suffering · Letters or moral writings, commonly attributed

• Despair
• Truth

“The ascent is slow, but the descent is rapid.”

A concise observation on effort, decline, and the uneven movement of life · Moral writings, commonly attributed

• Mortality
• Time

“I seem to you to have written everything, or at least a great deal; to myself I appear to have produced almost nothing.”

Original: Tibi omnia, vel certe multa, scripsisse videor; mihi autem paene nihil edidisse. — An ageing writer's sense that fame and inner judgement do not match. · Letter to Giovanni Boccaccio, 28 April 1373 (Latin)

• Fame
• Humility
• Writing